Bulbagarden rings in the new year
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With the holiday season now a distant memory, Bulbagarden is diving headfirst into the new year and new projects. After tying up a few loose ends from 2010, the original Pokémon community has already announced some exciting changes for 2011.
Contest winners
Readers may recall that, as has become tradition on Bulbagarden, a series of end-of-year festive contests were held starting from December, 2010. With the last of the judging finalized in mid-January, the full list of winners has now been released. Most winners should have already been contacted by Bulbagarden webmaster Archaic or another Bulbagarden staff member. If your name is listed below, and you have not heard anything, then feel free to contact Archaic via private message.
List of winners
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(Passed original prize offer to fourth place contestant.)
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Project Overgrow II
Two years ago, Bulbagarden undertook a development project known as Project Overgrow. Unfortunately, not all of the aims of the project were able to be completed due to technological faults. With this in mind, Bulbagarden has launched Overgrow II. This sequel project takes a broader scope to the first, and focuses on improving the site and making it more accessible to users. This will include upgrading the forum software to vBulletin 4, a much more secure system. With vB4 comes the addition of a new Content Management System (CMS), which was originally intended to be part of the original Overgrow. Improvements will also be made to the Bulbawiki network, which includes Bulbanews, Bulbapedia, and the Bulbagarden Archives.
Overseeing these changes will be evkl, who has stepped down from his Head Administrator position on Bulbagarden forums. evkl will be taking a more site-wide role as Chief of Staff, in order to fully orchestrate Overgrow II and coordinate the growth of the Bulbagarden community. Taking his place as the head of the forum is $aturn¥oshi, who has been involved with Bulbagarden for longer than most people care to remember.
One of the first developments with Overgrow II was the unveiling of a new development forum. Previously, Bulbagarden's development forum was a restricted access forum that only certain members, as well as staff, could access. The new forum is open to everyone - just be sure to read the rules before posting brilliant new ideas.
Bulbawiki news
Bulbagarden's wiki network—comprising Bulbanews, Bulbapedia, and the Archives—is continuing to grow at a steady pace. The recent changes of all three wikis have been flooded with information, news, and images related to the fifth generation games, anime, and other media that are beginning to launch around the world. The Bulbapedia Editorial Board would like to remind all editors, though, that they must wait for official confirmation before adding new information. Official sources include Pokémon.com and IGN; they do not include other fansites. These safety measures are in place to assure Bulbapedia's validity.
Recently, three upper-level staff roles have changed on the wikis. As reported in December, MAGNEDETH has taken up the role of Bulbapedia Editor-in-Chief, and the dark lord trombonator (trom) is Bulbanews's new Managing Editor. In January, Jello took over the reigns on the Archives in the role of Archives Director. Each editor has leaped straight into their new roles, and we wish them luck as they lead Bulbagarden's wikis.
Finally, in this section, the Bulbapedia administration team would like to thank all of the editors who've contributed to the wiki over the past six years. Yes, in case you missed the suddenly green main page, today marks six years since Bulbapedia's launch back in 2005. Over the years, the site has amassed 1,361,063 edits to 107,773 pages, 18,594 of which are made up of encyclopedic content. Nearly 20,000 pages! Congratulations, everyone. Bulbapedia is truly your wiki.
In other news
Bulbagarden has opened a new forum in the Outside the Box forum, which is known as the War Room. This exciting area is home to strategy games, particularly the surge of Mafia games which have sprung up recently. If you haven't yet investigated, feel free to take a look around (but watch out for mobsters).
A reminder to all forum users: please double-check the rules for your favorite forums. These are often updated to ensure that you are having the best possible posting experience.
And last—but certainly not least—congratulations to Bulbagarden administrators Archaic and Kasumi on finally tying the knot. After a two-year engagement, the webmaster and head of art married in Kasumi's native Costa Rica in January. They will eventually make their home in Australia, where Archaic works as a sessional academic. Best of luck, you two.
That's it for this site update, folks. We'll keep you posted on the latest changes to Bulbagarden as they happen. Happy (belated) new year!
